That Eminem is executive producing&nbsp;the soundtrack for upcoming boxing film "Southpaw" came as a pleasant surprise. His lead single "Phenomenal" went hard. Shady Records tweeted out the soundtrack tracklist early Friday morning a couple weeks after tweeting out the album cover. Gahdam, its stacked.

In an age when rappers seem more focused than ever on the prevailing trends, sounds and news stories of the day, Logic goes against the grain. For starters, his music is intensely personal, focusing almost solely on his daily struggles and come-up, and largely not relying on collaborators to elevate his status. This carries through to his online presence; Logic's Twitter and Facebook pages rarely contain rants or fiercely opinionated posts.

Logic is capping off the biggest year of his career with the announcement of his first world tour. Named after his new album Under Pressure, the tour will run between January 27th and April 2nd of 2015, and take him across the country and to parts of Europe.

This week something quite significant went down on the Billboard 200, albeit it's outside of the genre of hip-hop. Taylor Swift basically broke the mold and sold over 1 million copies of her new album, 1989, in turn giving her the highest sales in one week since 2002. That's twelve years ago. There is a small hip-hop connection here, because the last album that sold just over 1 million, in 2002, was Eminem's The Eminem Show. Anyways, with T Swift's chart takeover, a lot of our hip-hop dudes got pushed down.

For almost a year, living in his friend’s basement, MC Logic worked non-stop on a deadline to make "it" happen before the year was up. And that he did. The Maryland native signed with Visionary Music Group and Def Jam, and began working on his first project, Under Pressure. The album debuted at #4 last month on the Billboards, falling only behind veteran emcee T.I. and his Paperwork album.

This week the race between T.I. and Logic for the top spot on the Billboard 200 comes to a close. Many fans have been anticipating the competition between the OG and the newcomer, and the final tally finds Tip coming out ahead by less than 10,000 copies. Paperwork didn't nab the #1 spot but finagled #2 with 80k copies. Under Pressure comes up under T.I. at #4 with a solid 72k. Both rappers performed better than expected. However, when it comes to long term maintenance, we have a feeling Logic may eventually conquer Paperwork.

Well today’s the big day. Logic’s highly anticipated debut album, Under Pressure, was finally released via Def Jam, and thanks to his camp, Visionary Music Group, fans can now stream the entire thing for free (below).
The standard edition comes with 12 records of just Logic, while the deluxe version receives an additional three records (15 all day) and two features from Childish Gambino and Big Sean. Production on the LP is handled by 6ix, DJ Dahi, Dun Deal, M-Phazes, Rob Knox, S1,Tae Beast, and Logic himself. It is executive produced by No I.D.

It's been almost four months since the last edition of our "Crew Love" series, in which we profiled Chance The Rapper's Save Money crew, but this new feature has a twist. Instead of merely researching the careers of each artist in Visionary Music Group, the latest "Crew Love" subject, we got all of them to sound off about their own careers. Their responses paint a vivid picture of the label and the creative minds that fuel it.

Logic has come a long way since he dropped his first Frank Sinatra-inspired mixtape, Young, Broke & Infamous, four years ago. Off the strength of that tape and the three others that followed it, he steady built up his fanbase, utilizing social media and the blogosphere to its fullest. At the same time, he's never quite crossed over to uber-mainstream appeal, despite signing a deal with Def Jam for his upcoming debut album Under Pressure. He's remained true to himself and his team-- Visionary Music Group.

One of the most anticipated albums of the remainder of 2014 has to be Logic's upcoming commercial debut. Today, Complex unveiled the artwork and title of the upcoming album, set to drop "later this year." It's called Under Pressure, and the artwork is above. Logic described the project to Complex thusly:

When hip-hop began, samples were all that DJs and producers had to construct instrumental tracks with. They'd dig through crates of vinyl trying to find isolated drum breaks, melodies or vocals that they could repurpose for use in hip-hop music. Today, sampling has become less common, but a choice sample can still push a track from lukewarm to hot faster than you can say "uh-huh honey".
This week, see who Kendrick Lamar, Logic and Bishop Nehru & DOOM sampled on their recent tracks, all of which can be found on HNHH.

HotNewHipHop's On The Come Up series profiles rising stars in the rap game that show strong promise and the will to succeed. Most of the time, they're new to the site but deserve some shine. We will profile artists and producers ranging from those in the deep underground to artists just about to bubble up into the mainstream that you may have missed. You'll be able to check out some of their best work, and we'll break down what makes them great by category.

Funk Volume's Dizzy Wright might be fresh off of a joint project with Bishop Nehru, but it seems the emcee shows no sign of slowing down. Stopping in with Bootleg Kev and Tampa, Florida's 94.1, the rapper has announced yet another collaborative project he's working on; this time with Maryland emcee Logic.

Maryland MC Logic is one of the game's most talked-about rappers at the moment, and with good cause. His rapping skills are unparalleled by most of his peers, and with two solid mixtapes in the Young Sinatra series behind him, anticipation is very high for Logic's upcoming debut on Def Jam.

Logic is currently on the road for his "While You Wait" tour with fellow Visionary signee QuESt. The tour is intended to keep fans satisfied while they wait on Logic's debut album, due out via Def Jam later this year. He's nearing the end of his tour dates in the coming week, however before the tour comes to a close we've got a pair of tickets to give away for his stop in New York City, at Irving Plaza on June 29th.